Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Blogs | Writers | Paid | My Orble | Login

Science News - by Morgan Bell

 
Science News on research in the fields of: Evolution - Robotics - Genes - Embryonic Stem Cells - Astronomy - Biology - Geology - Archeology - Engineering - Disease Treatments

Richard Dawkins reads his hate mail

September 4th 2008 03:52
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is an extremely strong-willed professor at the University of Oxford, and has made his opinion on religion known publicly. While most atheists and agnostics are happy to let religion thrive around them, Dawkins blames religion - in general - as responsible for many of society's ills.


As you can imagine, this causes a great deal of strife among the population, and people like to make their opinions known.

Luckily, you can email Richard Dawkins and tell him what you think.

You can email him and call him a ninny-nosed noobicon, for example, or a zorkide zephram, or even a paloobatumbing pantaloon.

I know, I know - those are harsh words. Harsh words for harsh times.

The only thing is, well, you can write to Dawkins, but there's a chance he might read your letter out loud.



It's a shame that the video isn't longer. There's almost no greater pleasure than having private conversations aired in public. Stolen memos from the White House, saucy emails from adulterous affairs, salacious text messages - it's stuff that the public, and, thus, the tabloids love to get their fingers on.


Well, tabloids are pretty happy ignoring Dawkins, especially since he has very tiny breasts and almost always wears panties, but that doesn't mean that the scientific community can't enjoy these dim-witted emails.

Are there more? Can we hear more, Mr. Dawkins?

You could almost publish a book of hate mail, and I bet it'd sell well. The only problem is that, for real glee, you'd need to respond to the emails, then let the writers respond to your response, which could get a little heated. Ah well, though... it's all in the name of entertainment.



*this picture is from the Wikipedia page on Dawkins
118
Vote
Add To: del.icio.us Digg Furl Spurl.net StumbleUpon Yahoo


   
subscribe to this blog 


   

   


Comments
12 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by JohnDoe

September 4th 2008 04:18
Damn, just tried to watch and the message "This video is no longer available' came on screen.

Comment by Morgan Bell

September 4th 2008 04:38
yeah it said the same thing to me when i pressed play . . . shame, it sounded really interesting

Comment by Cibbuano

September 4th 2008 05:14
ok, updated a newer video - try it now!


Comment by RubySoho

September 4th 2008 05:26
Hahahaha! Wendy Wright told Richard Dawkins that he is close minded.



I love the prim and properness of his accent when he is reading out "fuck you you fucking fuck".

A lot of the letter tell Dawkins that the devil i s going to enjoy torturing him, but if the devil hates God and Dawkins hates God then shouldn't the devil be giving him a hi-five? Don't they actually share the same goal?

Sorry...too rational?

Comment by Morgan Bell

September 4th 2008 05:35
oh that was good!
i like how it ends on her cross-eyed face! haha
seriously the website for CWA scares me to death, just the homophobic materials they publish online, they really do seem like an organisation of hate

Comment by RubySoho

September 4th 2008 05:41
Yeah, Morgan I think they were the ones who started the whole 'Obama wants to kill live babies' meme that's going around.

I remember watching a video on the internet about it. I can't remember the site though, so don't take that as gospel. But I'm pretty sure it was them. i'll try to chase it up.


Does Wendy Wright look like a Stepford Wife or what?

I wonder what she looks like like when she peels that mask off?

Comment by Damo

September 4th 2008 12:01
I started reading one of his books years ago.
It was called "The Selfish Gene".

After a couple of chapters I came to conclusion this fellow is not very good at being an objective scientist and so it went back to the library. Take a nutty idea that seems to fit a contemporary social norm and call it science.

I am not surprised that he has spent the rest of his life trying to recapture the controversial lime light.

I may read his "God Delusion" when I get some time to waste but I from the excerpts I have read so far it is pretty close to being like Anne Coulter or Jack Chick with a secular bigoted twist. Hard the stuff of convincing scientific literature and certainly not earth shaking.


Comment by Cibbuano

September 4th 2008 21:44
Ruby, it is fun hearing him swear in his Oxford English accent...

Morgan, CWA? Ah... Concerned Women for America... that is a scary website.

Ah, this is the group that opposed the HPV vaccine. Their arguments seem unsupported and hollow.

Oh, and the Gay Agenda!

Damo, I read half of the Selfish Gene. I thought it was excellent, up to what I read. I quite enjoyed the little bit of evolutionary mathematics he discussed. What did you find nutty? I didn't think he made any strenuous claims, seemed to reference all the studies...


Comment by British bulldog

September 4th 2008 23:27
Hello Everyone,

Having read the Selfish Gene 30 years ago and some other stuff by Dawkins since,

Yes, he's definitely got an agenda

Yes it's funny hearing posh accented people say rude words

and Yes, the fact that religion is alive and well in America and Africa is in a way a terrible shame.

There are many religous people who do charity and through the dark ages only the monasteries kept learning alive, yet the churches have too often acted like power and money obsesed organised crime.

Consider a comparison with Islam. When Islam ran countries like Spain, Greece or Bosnia they were tolerant leaders. Compare that to the Spanish inquisition or St Bartholomew's Days Massacre. During the middle ages Pope's fornicated with prostitutes, committed incest, there were even three of them at one time all sending invoices for 'peters pence' to finance their sensual needs. Even as recently as during World War 2 the German SS were shocked!!!! at the cruelty of the Catholic Croats to their fellow orthodox serb christians. These events were repeated in the 1990's War of Yugoslav succession. The churches have of course paid little regard to the actual message of Jesus Christ. Love your fellow man.

I live in the Philippines. When some politicians here recently advocated public spending on birth control options ( there is a run away birth rate here and mass poverty) the bishops were queing up to condemn them and even withdraw the sacrament!

Surely it occurs to these people that Gallileo, Newton Einstein and yes even Dawkins were/are right. Of course it does, but there more interested in wearing big hats and telling people what not to do, while living very comforable lives. Even the saintly John Paul 11 witnessed an aids plague in Africa and yet condemned the use of condoms.

For five hundred years people have been laughing at the absurd beliefs of religion. If a man took communion then was involved in a car crash and suffered stomach injuries you can just imagine the argument between priest and doctor. We found bread and wine in his stomach! Oh no you didn't you found the body and blood of Jesus Christ!. If you say that then how am I to treat him, in line with the lab results or your absurd beliefs?

So good for Richard Dawkins. He's prepared to take the abuse and perhaps enjoy the notoriety to prod people into thinking through the issues. Maybe in another 500 years people will be able to accept the finality of death a little easier and so feel it less neccesary to beleive in such absurd palliatives as 'eternal life' the ultimate product offer of these cynical religous and materlai supremacists.

Regards to all Dawkins contributors,

British Bulldog

Comment by Morgan Bell

September 5th 2008 03:34
hi Cib,
i didnt realise they were opposing the HPV immunisation but it really doesnt surprise me . . . i think in their weird little minds they think homosexuality is some kind of a club that the gays are trying to convert everyone into joining, no ladies you dont have to BE gay, but could you just stop bashing the gays and calling them evil?

Comment by Damo

September 5th 2008 07:26
Cibbauno

It was over twenty years ago and if I remember correctly was more interested in raw science than sociological interpretations of science.

I think I had the same issues with 'The Selfish Gene' that I had with a book written some years later called 'The Bell Curve.' Both seemed to work on the premise of the Tail wagging the dog or genotypical predestination for social behaviour.

The premise that a gene can have an emotional trait just sounded sillier the more I thought about it. Once he started on about people being little more than robots that are fooled into making the selfish genes survive. This would have been fine if he left it as analogy but the guy was serious.

I am not sure why he got praised for that form of logic but in the show business world of cocktail science discussions I guess it fitted a few political theories quite fine.

So it was back to the library to swap it for something that read more like a science book and less like sociological argument.

Just a personal view.

Comment by British bulldog

September 6th 2008 12:28
Hi all,

Time to get slightly contraversial on 'The Selfish Gene'. In it Dawkins was keen to point out that just because Darwinian survival of the fittest suggested ruthless competition as we were slaves of our genetic chemical impulses it didn't mean that humans didn't co-operate for a mutual gain like social cohesion.

It did however suggest that evolutionary and therefore hormonal chemcial impulses meant that gender is a crucial and beneficial fact of nature.

I for one then would like women to accept that just as they are good at things men routinely underperform at the reverse is equally true. I won't go into lists ( men can;t find something in the fridge and women can 't park a car) but I hope now that feminism has matured we can accpet that the gender position is correcrtly postualted as equal but different and therefore potentially complimentary!

Regards,

British Bulldog

Add A Comment

To create a fully formatted comment please click here.


CLICK HERE TO LOGIN | CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Name or Orble Tag
Home Page (optional)
Comments
Bold Italic Underline Strikethrough Separator Left Center Right Separator Quote Insert Link Insert Email
Notify me of replies
Notify extra people about this comment
Is this a private comment?
List the Email Addresses or Orble Tags of the people you would like to be notified about this comment


One per line max of 30

List the Email Addresses or Orble Tags of the people you would like to be notified about this private comment thread. Only the people in this list will be able to see or reply to your comment.


One per line max of 30

Your Name
(for the email going out to the above list, it can be different to your Orble Tag)
Your Email Address
(optional)
(required for reply notification)
Submit
More Posts
1 Posts
1 Posts
5 Posts
160 Posts dating from March 2006
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:
0

Morgan Bell's Blogs

5291 Vote(s)
84 Comment(s)
62 Post(s)
36155 Vote(s)
5005 Comment(s)
249 Post(s)
11559 Vote(s)
779 Comment(s)
86 Post(s)
Moderated by Morgan Bell
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]